Into the Alley to Bless the Dirt
by MaussHauss
Summary: It was not as if the affair would cost them their friendship... a thing which they neither possessed, nor wanted. Slash. Anders/Fenris, 2nd POV
1. 1

_k!meme fill, under the exquisite prompt asking for realistic_  
_hate-sex shenanigans. They aren't friends, they don't become_  
_friends (or fall in love), but as two thinking adults with healthy_  
_libidos they can at least respect some physical attraction. :D_

* * *

The first you see of him, you mistake him for a mage. His accent is undeniably Tevinter, and he dispatches Hawke's enemies (his enemies, your enemies) with a passionate disgust that you recognize but can't quite name. The magic is physical, though, raw lyrium drawing nothing from the Fade, arcing through his corporeal with ruthless surety. He's a bundle of anger and prejudice, and does not hesitate to throw that out in front of himself like parade confetti.

Sharp parade confetti, made of furniture tacks and orphan tears. _Slave_ orphan tears, no less.

Hawke, bless his dumb bearded head, tries his best to use Logic and Charm whenever speaking with his newfound blade-o-indebted-friendship, but to little avail. The elf had been monstrously wronged, uneducated and alone in his struggle, grown into a stubborn reactionary with little vision of long-term gain beyond earning the coin for his next meal.

You'd pity the blighter if he weren't such a damn hypocrite; and that's more pity than he'd spare any other slave, providing the accident of their birth was that of magic. The longer you fight by Hawke's side, the more you see of the elf, the more your pity diminishes. He isn't uneducated so much as academically stymied, and catching up on his own terms besides.

He's clever, and capable, and not so the lost lamb of indiscriminate violence as first supposed by all in your happy little sellsword family. You come to magnificent arguments, the two of you, which is the inevitability of sharp minds with nothing to struggle against but the philosophical concepts as posed by modern Kirkwall; something to which he might have greater understanding if he ever read your manifesto.

But no, Fenris' thoughts are perpetually stuck back in Tevinter, where corruption reigns as powerfully as it does in Orlais - merely under a different banner. Mundanes do not handle government _better_ than mages, they simply handle it more subtly. And this, perhaps, is the greater argument; because Fenris sees evil in only one type of personage, whereas you (and Justice) know that evil is an equal-opportunity agent of corruption. Slavery would still exist without magic.

Magic _can_ and _should_ exist without slavery.

"I think you simplify the concepts of authority too starkly, mage. Tower supervision is hardly the yoke and chain of indentured servitude."

And it's moments like this, without Hawke there to caper your 'discussions' (which aren't arguments so much as the war-front of basic humane concepts) from the years-old topic (seriously, you've known Fenris all of two and a half years, and your debates only become the more convoluted) - moments like _this_, by any rate, that you have to step back and regard Fenris at a different angle.

It's not respect; you only respect him as far as his sword can reach - at least in the sense that you respect all life (even the lives of misguided templarate enemies who fall to Justice's colder sense of - nevermind). But if Fenris weren't such a broken parody of underclass angst and frustrated retribution (much of which you have seen in your time in Lowtown), you would have to admit that he is, in fact, merely a stubborn hot-head who wouldn't know sympathy if it bit him on the arse.

If you had _ever_ mistaken Fenris as a mage from Tevinter, it were not only to the fault of that glowy-punchy thing his lyrium facilitates; but also to the credit of his sheer _egoism_, of the way he reacts to each event as if it were personal slight or retribution, of his disdainfully arrogant and _clearly educated_ sense of wordplay. But are you allowed to point that out? Noooo, far be it for you to upset anyone under the wing of _Garrett dimple-cheek Hawke_, even if he should keep you two hours overdue at the Hanged Man while he runs around the city hunting out the provisioner of your latest blood-letting fracas.

"Hawke is late," as if to echo your lack of rebuttal, Fenris sneers a drink order at the bar maid and perches himself on a nearby stool, there to cross his arms and scowl out at the tavern like a particularly sour gargoyle.

"Hawke is always late. And always forgiven." You lean in conspiratorially, because if you're going to be mean-spirited you'd rather not do it alone. "It's the beard. It holds unplumbed magics of persuasion."

Fenris scoffs. "And here I always thought it were the bald-faced flattery he so liberally backs with each apology."

"'Can't do this without you' this, or 'we need our healer' that."

"'Sure I could defeat the Haverly Raiders alone, but what kind of woodprint would it be without your _striking profile_ carved in our midst'..."

You scoff into your ale. "Really? All I get is a guilt-trip disguised as appreciation for my skill, and there you are succumbed to his flattery in earnest."

"Who says I succumb?" The hard edge of suspicion, and you sigh.

"Well. You're here, aren't you?" The ale goes down bitter, and at second glance Fenris is studying you with something removed from his usual contempt.

"As are you, but not dressed for the usual fight." There is a question in there, suspicion ever-present.

You hum into your empty mug, wicking foam from your upper lip before answering, "Templars are out in force; thought it better to keep to the dress-code of the peasantry." Not that it would do any good if any Templars actually wandered in actually looking for a mage; but all the better to not give the 'peasantry' any inspiration in terms of rewarded tip-offs.

Fenris' response is, as always, laced with the nasal half-sarcasm of his nationality. "Congratulations, then, you very nearly do appear normal; I can almost see what so preoccupies Garrett."

_That_ is worth a raised eyebrow; since _when_ is Hawke 'Garrett' to anybody but his mother? That statement had been colored with the low gravel of Fenris' usual begrudging tones, green eyes gone distant in some memory over the clay rim of his mug.

"Not that that isn't... the weirdest thing I've heard out of you in all the years of Hawke's foul-ups, but _what_? If Hawke isn't busy making moony puppy-dog eyes at you, it's Merrill who has his undivided affections. Man's got an elf occupation that'd be _embarrassing_ if it weren't so -" You search for the word, Fenris glancing balefully at the bar maid as she refills your mugs. "- understandable."

Fenris regards you again, a flash of jeweled green behind thick white bangs. You look at Fenris, your eyes narrowed and jaw pushed thoughtfully forward. The smug grin that he hides behind his ale tugs something out of place, and even Justice is too preoccupied with the overpowering song of lyrium to voice his abjection. Suddenly, Fenris isn't just a bundle of ill concepts and misguided grudge-bearing. He is a full-grown _elf_, a lean build relaxing and tensing as if every shift of weight were an attack, and a cutting jaw (that surely no woodprint could do without) and -

Luckily, it is Isabela who saves the evening with a message from Hawke, and you and Mr. Scowly McIndentured-Friendship leave the tavern with a busty boisterous murderess clamping each arm around either of your necks, nattering on about 'interrupted atmosphere' and lewd suggestions therein.


	2. 2

The more the mage speaks, the less you are surprised at his single-minded fervor. He does Hawke a discredit every time he opens his mouth, more damaging to his own cause than as the boon he so sees himself. After two and some-odd years of observation, you have concluded that the man is simply incapable of seeing past the length of his own nose, and that his sympathy is a thin veil fronting the cause of his own petty revenge.

Which is typical short-sightedness where peoples of certain power are concerned; the only difference between a noble-born and a mage remains that noble-borns only ever hurt themselves in their tantrums. Mages wield their self-entitlement to the danger of all around them, never once supposing that their gilded cages offer far more comfort and support than bestowed to any low-born mundane left to scrape a living from the streets and farmsteads.

But no, it is never _enough_ for the mage; where Hawke finds simple comfort in keeping his family fed and sheltered (the true 'freedom of contentment' for any man born) - the mage of the Anderfels must stick the length of his nose into politics and shout heresy at every Templarate cock-up that comes to light. _Of course_ there is corruption in the Chantry; there is corruption _everywhere_ and generally (as far as you've witnessed) the Powers That Be here in the Free Marches tend to handle the corruption by hiring men such as yourself and Hawke to _remedy_ the abuse.

It is nothing comparable in the slightest to the way of Tevinter, where people who so much as glance askew at their 'betters' are flayed alive in the streets. No Champions of the People, no authority at all really beyond the farce of the Electorate and the games the Magisters play to win those seats. No, Anders looks at the safety and surety of Kirkwall's Circle and quotes _slavery_. As if a few denied meals and adolescent whippings were at all comparable to the iron chains, broad-daylight rape, skin-branding and casual amputation of _actual_ slavehood.

Such ignorance could make you physically _ill_ just for the witnessing of it, and there is no remedial to be had between you and that particular tag-along of Hawke's. A man who sought not to broaden his horizons was a pitiable sight, but only so far as he did not sabotage that pity with his own arrogance. The more you rise up to challenge his ideals, the harder he tries to rebuff your opinions, an ill shadow of the Magisters who meet the slightest resistance with their own overzealous justifications. Most days you can't make up your mind why you haven't put the abomination out of his misery, as he is very clearly struggling to make good on his claims.

But then you find a stranger in leather breeks and cinched linen tunic at the Hanged Man, one whose lament is over Hawke's fidelity and not the state of magical regulation in modern Kirkwall, and Anders as a person - as a mundane - is a handsome man of moderate wit who could have very well been in Garrett Hawke's position under different circumstance. That position being a certain debt of gratitude, though thank every power that be for which that isn't the case. Because Anders is _not_ a mundane. He is a mage, and by the entitlement of his birth seeks no responsibility for his own power beyond that which his terrible judgement can provide and you are only glad to be so near him so often so that yours might be the sword that puts this sad mimic of retribution to his final rest.


	3. 3

There is really only just the one couch; Isabela and Hawke in a close press while you lean a hip against the upholstered arm and Fenris perches, gargoylic and dour as ever, on the back. Hawke discreetly mentions the terrible substitution of furniture for firelogs, but stretches out to tease Fenris' knee regardless his earlier subtlety. You almost go green at the sight of the flirtation, but are smug in your victory; you had been right, Hawke has a _thing_ for elves, and Fenris is so transparently vain that he actually softens at the attention and - Andraste's flaming knickers - you might have a thing for elves now too.

And wouldn't that just beat all, if you could finally have a leg up against Fenris... But then you would literally have a leg _up_ against Fenris. You laugh to yourself and Isabela pokes your hip with a silver coin between her fingers.

"Oi, sweetness. Be a friend and get us some drinks from the stall at Bayover Street?"

Hawke pulls Isabela's arm back, chuckling. "Let's not send the wanted apostate into broad daylight just for snackies."

Isabela pouts, "But he's wearing trousers and everything!"

You snort. "You just wanted to watch me walking away. _Again_."

A sultry chuckle, "You know I hate to see you leave, darling, but I do so love to watch you go."

Hawke sighs, picking himself up from the couch. "I'll go. See if you can't find a table not yet broken into kindling. We can make a picnic of it."

"Oh no. Youuu aren't leaving me with Broody and Sparklefingers on the dry." Isabela plucks herself daintily from the couch, and you take up her spot with a relieved sigh. Your feet really were killing you in those heavy boots. "Sorry, spikeybits. But I know what you two are like in a conversation and I'd rather fetch the happy juice on errand than listen to you snipe."

Hawke frowns and you wave him away, head rolling back against the dilapidated couch and eyes sliding shut. "I'm going to nap. Wake me when the food's arrived."

Fenris' voice is already across the room. "I trust the mage not to burn what's left of my furniture while we are away?"

You grunt, swinging your legs up on the length of the couch and sighing in bliss because Lowtown never sawr such luxury. You wake up to a dark house; which would be spooky enough in that the house is falling apart and the air of it still tastes like burnt Fade and - and the jostle that woke you was the house's resident squatter kicking the leg of the couch to get your attention.

"Go home," Fenris advises, not unkindly. "Hawke asked I wait until nightfall before sending you out." He swats your legs from the couch and bends to light a lamp, setting book and wine bottle to the floor while you sit up to rub the grit of sleep from your eyes.

"You don't owe me any favors, but -"

"Understatement of the century, mage."

"Ha. _Ha_." And you know the answer is 'no' before you've even begged sanctuary. Justice is unusually quiet when you are in this house, preoccupied with the thin state of the veil, and your sleep had gone uninterrupted for the first time in years. You rub your tired face and lean your elbows on your knees, and if Fenris thinks sitting on the couch is going to scare you away from it -

You toe your boots off and swing your legs into his lap, disrupting his book. The look he gives you makes you withdraw first one leg and then the other, curling your knees back within reach, eyebrow up and magic humming defensively just under your skin. Right, well, it _is_ his home, more or less, and you are a less-than-invited guest, and "My apologies; only Hawke spoke true when he said, well..." You tilt your head, forcibly casual.

Fenris' voice is a low thunder on a distant horizon, "When Hawke said what." Your heart plummets to your groin.

"When he hypothesized that anger only makes you more the beautiful." It's the cheesiest line in all of Thedas and you think you have just tolled your own death bell but it _works_, and suddenly the mystery of Fenris' loyalty to Hawke isn't so compelling - for Hawke is the crowned champion of cheesy pick-up lines - and the bridge of Fenris' nose has gone dark with a blush and his eyes are wide behind the initial shock of disrupted anger. The words fall out in a rush of relief, "So you'll have to excuse my rudeness. Only a test of theory." But if there's any hope of staying on that couch for the night, hell, you _aren't_ above exploiting your enemy's only weakness. You latch on to the only topic on which you two have ever agreed, "Hawke and his theories, hey? I'd half forgive him the foolery if it didn't so often risk me my safety."

Fenris grunts, eyes only half recovered to their usual guarded scowl. "Yes. I daresay it was your safety in peril just now."

"Oh, yes, aha. Well." A staged cough, a feigned embarrassment. "I couldn't resist." And here you find yourself digging unplumbed depths for the flattery of your youth; that which saw you slapped more often than not. "Such as you are, _irresistible_."

Laconic, "I would ask you to -" But Fenris' throat works around the swallow, and the blush has reached his ears. "Stop. Talking."

You carefully stretch your legs back over his lap, as the best case scenario he simply flees with embarrassment - and the worst case scenario, well, you _are_ a healer. It might not end in any permanent damage. "Fine," you are the picture of cold-sweat casual. "We don't have to use words." The 'we' is implied intimacy, as cheesy as it gets without there being presence of a cow. Your knee presses up against his shoulder, stocking heel rubbing a slow circle against the bone of his hip.

Fenris is staring straight ahead, eyes which flick your way changing intemperately between hooded suspicion and the fluttering lashes of blinking twice to reorganize his thoughts. You aren't exactly _new_ to seducing reticent melee types; you only never made the connection in your assumptions that Fenris was as much a warm-blooded man as anybody else. You know very well the appeal of unbridled hate-sex, as the tower mages had little else to settle their philosophical disputes (and Templars both male and female had always carried that extra spice of desperation).


	4. 4

There were two paths laid out before you; and either Anders walked away from your home on both legs or not at all; because you weren't sure, at this point, if you were going to fuck him or kill him - or just break his leg and leave. You decide to call his bluff, to be the better man, to rise above all this idiotic posturing. But you also want to be fair. Your days of pleasing magisters were long over, and no man should have as much sway over your actions as to incite such hair-trigger violence. Because you were above this rivalry.

You were your own man, you were the writer of your own destiny, you were - you were hard as a rock, hopelessly aroused by charismatic scruffy mages with irritating wit and syrupy praise. One mage in particular, and not the one currently on your couch whose heel was traveling dangerously south. It is nearly a growl, your ultimatum, "Occupy your mouth otherwise, for good measure."

The confidence with which Anders moves is disturbing; suddenly a years-long personal barrier between you is shed for the sake of mutual arousal, if the stain across his cheeks is any proof. He doesn't possess the self-awareness to even look away, eyes heated as he nods, wordless, single-mindedly determined in his shift along the couch, in the dip of his head to your lap, the long sure fingers at the laces of your breeks, stubble rasping against your skin and the envelope of wet heat around your cock and the noise this pulls out of you is _not quite_ praise, not quite an order, not quite anything really but his hands pull at the buckles of your armor and

The kiss is more tactile than sentiment, you can't get enough of the hair on his jaw and your eyes are shut tight against the blonde visage in favor of something darker, someone infinitely more dear to you. He kisses with all the confidence you imagine Hawke to kiss, consuming but giving, rasping praise along the sensitive length of your ear as his fingers wrap around your arousal to tug more noise out of you -

"Shut _up_," you plea, because Anders' voice is just that shade of Tower-nasal where Hawke was that of earthy Ferelden peasantry and the illusion was unpleasantly interrupted by the difference. You feel Anders grin against your neck, and for some reason this pulls the heat of anger in to mix with the blind tactile lust. It shouldn't, really. Sex should be enjoyed, enjoyable, grins and banter and open communication of what was pleasurable. You read as much in a volume lent by Isabela, whom you take as an expert on Living Free. To follow that text faithfully, (and feeling just a bit proud of your self-control in not eviscerating your house guest), you give a clearer instruction, "Suck. My. Cock."

Anders, to your surprise, moans low in his throat and descends to your lap once again, where you hold him by the back of the neck to keep the situation under your control. His hands bunch at the hem of your breeks, pulling at the leather to expose your thighs to the tickling fall of his hair and your head rolls back against the couch with an unfettered moan, because Hawke's hair often fell loose on windy days and this is what it might _feel_ like and -

Anders takes you to the hilt in a deep suckle and you're curled forward over him, shuddering as your hips buck into the sensation. There is a brief struggle as Anders brings you to climax; your fingers are curled tight into his hair and your cock no doubt bruising the back of his throat, and you let him up only to avoid the awkward moment explaining to Hawke that you smothered his healer with your groin.


	5. 5

Hawke storms out of your clinic and you throw an empty pestle at the far wall with a surge of angst so far unfelt. Startled to see the shock of white hair and menacing black armors leaning casually in the doorway, you snipe a question at his presence.

"That was an embarassing display," Fenris grumbles, eyes narrowed, unreadable.

You stand by the empty cots of your gutted clinic, resolute in your decision to ignore having advanced _anything_ with Fenris that you have not yet mustered the courage to advance with Hawke (who only argued as fervently as he did because he _cared_ about you - and thus was the source of your shame). Indeed, you only ever provoked Fenris out of a juvenile sense of cruelty, and once this 'advantage' proved completely futile you saw no reason to continue the physical affair. Or Justice saw no reason, actually; you and your past exploits remembered Very Well the advantages of hate-sex.

You shoo at Fenris silently, refusing to engage in your usual arguments.

The noise in the back of his throat is bemused annoyance, a sound that _still_ sets your teeth on edge. The doors are shut behind him, his armored pauldrons clatter to the stone of the clinic floor. You want to argue, but you also want to vent some of this frustration before you go making a bigger ass of yourself at, to, or around Hawke. Again.

Fenris approaches warily, chin lifted so that he might inspect you down the length of his nose, arms crossed, ever-defensive. "Disrobe," a request, this time. Just shy of a command.

You scoff, turning your back once you've reached your sleeping corner to pull your battle-robes apart, untogging and unlacing and unwinding. It's been years since you chose the coat-and-trousers over the traditional floor-length robes, and once the feathered coat is off you could pass for a regular denizen, a fact that always sours in your thoughts. All mages could _pass_ as 'normal' people, they need only be seen as people in the first place.

Surprise overtakes your dark introspection once more, for on turning you see Fenris naked to the waist - an instant cooled by the professional detachment the clinic demands. You look twice, lingering, appreciative. It's not difficult to summon the flattery; Fenris _is_ attractive - probably to his own ignorance - and you say so, in as many words.

"You don't have to -" But the blush has already flushed his chest and the bridge of his nose. "Say. Anything. I am here already, am I not?"

"Maybe I just like seeing you -" you cut off the word 'squirm' before it is past your teeth, having realized how very Magister that might have sounded. It's true, though, you do like seeing Fenris discomfited and out of his depth. "Turn red all over. Like an angry tomato." The moment is past, and he gives you the side-long, guarded evaluation of his.

You can see the decision in his eyes, how they cloud and go soft, even though his mouth is stuck in that contemplative frown. "We don't tell Hawke."

"Maker!" You let out a breath you didn't realize you'd been holding. "We don't tell _anybody_." You pull your cot out from under its crowded shelving with your foot, stepping out of your boots and padding bare-foot around the swept stone to extinguish the lamps. Business hours over for the day, lights go out, you are usually afforded three or four hours of sleep before the next stab-wound pulls you from your pillow.

A reluctant admission, "Probably wise," and Fenris' hands are at the laces of your breeks as soon as you are in reach (having circled back 'round to your cot, clinic doors safely bolted). Strong hands, those. Fenris is deceptively lanky, and you don't know how much of his strength is owed to the lyrium or how much he simply built up over a lifetime of labor. His body isn't something you're afraid to break, at any rate, and by the way he manhandles you the sentiment is returned.

You're biting your lip around a smirk and Fenris' scowl deepens. His hands slow, chin lifting up to regard you eye-to-eye. "What, mage."

You hesitate, because his intemperate moodswings could mean any mis-step might put an end to this and you very much want to continue. "Nothing. Did you want me to fetch the salve, or...?"

The surprise, as ever, softens the deep line between his eyebrows. "I plan to use my mouth,"

And it nearly hurts you to reject that idear, but, "I plan to get fucked." Your honesty burns a trail from pointy ear to pointy ear and you clap his shoulder, unlacing your own trousers as you rifle through the crate at the foot of your cot.

"Why?"

You scoff. "I should think it were obvious. Ah, here." You don't ask if he has any protest. The man is a bundle of _issues_ that you don't want to stir up with any of that struggle-for-dominance horseshit. You hand him the small clay pot with its chipped cork stopper, eyebrow raised. "Unless you've never..." But he _has_, before. This is just something you tend to know about people. One of your special talents. (Also, Maker, the way he _looks_ at Hawke sometimes, and those telling conversations with Isabela, and - no, okay, mostly it was the Isabela-talk that told you as much.)

Fenris regards the pot as if you had just handed him a tightly coiled snake. "And how do you know I shall not injure you?"

_That_ is another surprise, and for a fleeting moment you feel all of seventeen again, apprehensively playful. "Fenris! And here I thought you above bragging."

It takes a moment for his more literal grasp of language to process the innuendo, and his only answer is a flat-eyed glare as he crowds you back against the cot until your knees buckle in a hard sit. His voice is rough and curiously calm at the same time. "Or perhaps it is injury you seek."

The laugh carries an edge out of the core of you, and Justice stirs in his own prison of literal interpretation and you cannot chase the tension He beds in your limbs. So you lay back, arms crossed confident and languid behind your head, long legs kicking out along the narrow cot. "I get plenty of injuries following Garret," (and you see the twitch when you mention his name, you do, and a small mean part of you thrills at it) "Thanks."

"Hn." Fenris is stepping out of his leathers, easy in his nudity the way free men were never taught to be. "Get thy bulk turned over, then. I'd not want to bruise you in the attempt."

You smirk, and roll to your side, then flop on your belly, lifting your hips to draw down your trousers and your smalls mid-thigh all in one go, easy in your sexuality the way slaves were never taught to be.


End file.
